Functional Testing of Web Services: Part IV

Two other web service test tools which deserve honorable mention in our comparison tests were: soapUI, available as Open Source or in a pro version distributed by eviware; and HP’s QuickTest Professional Web Services Add-In.
soapUI
This tool does not require a detailed knowledge of complicated technologies like .NET. Although the user interface is not as intuitive as that of some other tools, a tester who has some experience in programming can learn to create, organize and perform test activities fairly quickly.
soapUI allows structuring your test project into test suites that contain test cases, which can contain test steps. This structure is well-managed: you can add, modify, delete and change the order of every item in the structure. soapUI provides the tools to manage and run your test cases, and to view the SOAP responses to your test requests. You can even include limited load testing scenarios. For added flexibility, soapUI supports Groovy Script, a scripting language similar to Java.
QuickTest Pro Web-Services Add-In
QuickTest Pro with the Web Services Add-In offers a wizard to create a test object that represents the Web Service and port you want to test, and inserts the relevant steps directly into your test or component. This accelerates the process of designing a basic test that checks the operations that your Web service supports. You then update the wizard-generated steps of your test or component by replacing the generated argument values with known valid values, updating the expected values, and selecting the nodes you want to check in your checkpoints.
A QTP XML Warehouse setting is used to store request data, and a QTP Object Repository is used to store responses as checkpoints for verification.
The wizard generates a generic XML structure as a place holder for the expected XML return values. However, before you can actually run your test or component, you must replace the default values with the appropriate values for your test. A valid SOAP request can be imported into the XML Warehouse as a separate step, and a separate XML checkpoint would need to be created for each test case. Defining tests is a little cumbersome and the UI is a little clumsy, but if you’re already using QTP for functional testing, including web service regression tests in your test suites is an easy option.